Statement from the SDI Board on Israel and Gaza

As a diverse and international organization, we know that SDI members and friends may be experiencing a wide range of emotions in response to the recent attack on southern Israel on October 7th and the assaults on Gaza that have followed.  

As the Board of SDI, our hearts cry out at the unconscionable violence that is occurring in Israel.  We decry the taking of innocent lives wherever and whenever it occurs.  As human beings who recognize the value of life, what some of us call the spark of the Divine that we recognize in others, the murder of civilians, the rape, torture, and kidnapping of children, the elderly, or any person, are never justifiable under any circumstances.  They are crimes against humanity.

We are in pain with Israel and the Palestinian people.  There will be no victors here.  We call on all parties to this conflict to abide by international laws and the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War. While we know that this is a time for accompaniment and not fixing, we also pray for the gift of time’s span. A time where all parties may find a way through their unimaginable loss and heartbreak to a place where compassion and healing may manifest for those so long traumatized by ongoing violence.

Our hearts are with those who are in mourning, and we pray, each according to their own tradition, for the wellbeing of the children and elderly and all who are now hostages.  We do not have answers, but as spiritual directors, companions, and guides, we can decry inhumanity and savagery, bear witness to the devastating pain engendered by the recent attacks, and accompany those who are suffering, in pain, and in mourning.  

We hold you all in our hearts.  If you are in pain, tell us what you need.  We are here, we are in pain, we are with you, and we are listening.

The Board of Spiritual Directors International

Agnes Hermans (she/her), Aotearoa (NEW ZEALAND)

Leslie Keener, CDP, Melbourne, Kentucky (USA)

Joel L. Kushner, PsyD. (he/him), Los Angeles, California (USA)

Cindy Lee, PhD (she/her), Los Angeles, California (USA)

Rev. Eric Massanari, M. Div. (he/him), Bellingham, Washington (USA)

Westina Matthews PhD (she/her), Savannah, Georgia (USA)

Wanjiku J. Mwangi, M.Div., SD, Nairobi (KENYA)

Stephen Rivet, Grand Ledge, Michigan (USA)

Karen Simms-Tolson, Louisville, Kentucky (USA)

Rev. Seifu Anil Singh-Molares (he/him/his), MTS, Seattle, Washington (USA)

We invite those of you who want to share reflections to use the Comments form below.  If you’d like to communicate more privately, please let us know at [email protected].

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A compendium of written offerings for our soul in a troubled time

The Prayer of the Mothers/Mothers’ Prayer for Peace, written in Hebrew and Arabic by Sheikha Ibtisam Maḥameed and Rabbi Tamar Elad-Appelbaum, English Translation by Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie, 2014

https://opensiddur.org/prayers/collective-welfare/shalom/prayer-of-mothers-for-life-and-peace-by-sheikha-ibtisam-mahamid-and-rabbi-tamar-elad-appelbaum/

God of Life:

You who heals the broken hearted, binding up our wounds.

Please hear this prayer of mothers.

You did not create us to kill each other

Nor to live in fear or rage or hatred in your world. You created us so that we allow each other to sustain Your Name in this world:

Your name is Life, your name is Peace.

For these I weep, my eye sheds water:

For our children crying in the night,

For parents holding infants, despair and darkness in their hearts.

For a gate that is closing – who will rise to open it before the day is gone?

With my tears and with my constant prayers, With the tears of all women deeply pained at these harsh times

I raise my hands to you in supplication: Please God have mercy on us.

Hear our voice that we not despair, That we will witness life with each other, That we have mercy one for another, That we share sorrow one with the other, That we hope, together, one for another.

Inscribe our lives in the book of Life

For Your sake, our God of Life, Let us choose Life.

For You are Peace, Your world is Peace and all that is Yours is Peace,

May this be your will

And let us say Amen.

 

May we make peace where there is now war, rebuild where there is now devastation. Rabbi Dr. Rachel Adler

 

Please Call Me by My True Names – Thich Nhat Hanh

Don’t say that I will depart tomorrow — even today I am still arriving.

Look deeply: every second I am arriving to be a bud on a Spring branch, to be a tiny bird, with still-fragile wings, learning to sing in my new nest, to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower, to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.

I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry, to fear and to hope.

The rhythm of my heart is the birth and death of all that is alive.

I am the mayfly metamorphosing on the surface of the river. And I am the bird that swoops down to swallow the mayfly.

I am the frog swimming happily in the clear water of a pond. And I am the grass-snake that silently feeds itself on the frog.

I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones, my legs as thin as bamboo sticks. And I am the arms merchant, selling deadly weapons to Uganda.

I am the twelve-year-old girl, refugee on a small boat, who throws herself into the ocean after being raped by a sea pirate. And I am the pirate, my heart not yet capable of seeing and loving.

I am a member of the politburo, with plenty of power in my hands. And I am the man who has to pay his “debt of blood” to my people dying slowly in a forced-labor camp.

My joy is like Spring, so warm it makes flowers bloom all over the Earth. My pain is like a river of tears, so vast it fills the four oceans.

Please call me by my true names, so I can wake up, and so the door of my heart can be left open, the door of compassion.